“Have I caused you to be silly, Peter?”
If you only knew, he told himself. He thought of the lie he had told Wallace, about the need to do some apartment hunting, then arranging for the unauthorized trip that could easily put his butt in a very large sling. But Wallace had been so pleased with the information Auguste had provided about new North Vietnamese supply routes that he had happily agreed. If he found out, or even worse, if Colonel Duc found out, life would not be very pleasant for Peter Bently.
“You haven’t answered me, Peter,” Lin said, her voice holding the hint of inner laughter.
“I was thinking of your father-in-law.”
“Oh, I see. Then perhaps I have made you do something silly.”
“I hope you continue to,” he said.
They stopped, and Lin looked out across the bay.
“When I am here, the concerns and prejudices of my people are like the war—they are hard for me to understand.”
“It’s a very beautiful place. It must have been wonderful growing up here.”
Lin turned and smiled up at him. “Yes, it was. I always loved it here. I always thought that this is what my country would be like if there were no war.”
“Sometimes I forget that the people here have never known peace. It’s a hard thing to grasp.” Peter looked down at the wet sand, drew a line with his toe, then watched it disappear as the next wave inched across it. “All I’ve ever known is peace. Until now, anyway.”
“That was also true for the people here in Vung Tau.” Lin looked back across the bay again, as if searching for something that was there. “I never really understood the war when I was a child here. I’m afraid I led a rather sheltered life. It was when I was at school in Paris that I first understood the depth of what was happening here. I felt guilty then. Being there in safety while others were suffering at home.”
“Have you ever thought of going back to Europe?”
She turned back and smiled at him, but there was a sadness in her eyes, a melancholy, that for the moment seemed to accentuate her frail beauty.
No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I would like to visit some day. But I shall never leave Viet Nam. It is my home, it is where I belong.” Lin seemed to sense her own mood and shook the melancholy away. She hugged herself, her hands moving along her arms. Doing so, dressed in a simple skirt and short-sleeved blouse, she looked very much like a schoolgirl. “Don’t you look forward to returning home, going back to a place you feel you belong?”
Peter stared past her. But I have come home, he thought.
“I guess it’s all still too new to me.” He looked back at her and noticed she was watching him closely. “I studied the region so extensively, I suppose I developed a certain feeling of closeness to the place and its people. I’ve wanted to come here for many years now. But the war, my part in it, has made it very different than I had hoped it would be. I would like very much to see it without the war.”
They began walking again, back along the beach to where they had left their shoes. Peter was dressed in uniform, the trousers rolled up to his knees, his cap hanging from his rear pocket. It was almost noon, and the sun beat down on them, nullifying the breeze that came off the bay. Ahead there were seafood stands along the beach, with umbrella-covered tables nearby.
“Would you like something to eat?” he asked.
“Yes, that would be nice. And then I shall take you to cai luong. There is a performance this afternoon.”
“Cai luong?” Peter asked.
“Ah, your studies of our country have not been as complete as you have led me to believe.” Her eyes glittered mischievously. “Cai luong is our opera, folk opera really. It is very stylized, very dramatic, and everyone goes to it, the rich and the poor alike. The actors speak and sing and gesture wildly. It is very stylized and yet sophisticated at the same time. And still it is simple and very colorful. We can lose ourselves in it, and in doing that we can forget the sadness in our own lives.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Peter said.
Lin began to laugh. “It may be hard for you. Westerners have difficulty appreciating oriental music. Your Colonel Wallace once told me he thought our music sounded like a dozen cats fighting.”
“Music is like food,” Peter said. “Often it takes time to acquire a new taste.”
“Ahh, but the new is often very disturbing. To discover something new, something unexpected, can disturb the harmony surrounding a person’s life. Often it can force new directions upon that person that were never anticipated.”
“Yes, I know,” Peter said.
It was four o’clock before the performance ended, and as they walked together along a crowded, dusty street, Peter realized how much the opera had captivated him. It had brought him back to days early in his childhood, before he had mastered Lao, days when he had struggled to understand the tonal jabbering of the Mua tribesmen who worked for his grandfather. Days after that with Luc, when things oriental were so much a part of his being. He had thought he had lost much of the past, but realized now it had only been driven beneath the surface, waiting to be recaptured.
“You are very quiet, Peter,” Lin said, breaking into his thoughts. “Did you find the opera upsetting?”
“In a way. But not in the way you mean. It’s hard for me to explain. It was very beautiful, and it made me think of things I have not thought about for many years.”
“And you find that disturbing?”
“I find it disturbing that I was able to put them out of my mind so easily.”
They entered a small park, walking slowly along pathways bordered with flowers. Ahead, a group of young Vietnamese officers stood talking, their uniforms sharply pressed.
“I’ve noticed a great many young officers here,” Peter said.
“Many have been assigned here,” Lin answered. “Like Saigon, Vung Tau is a popular military assignment for the sons of the wealthy. Their parents pay a great deal of money to assure them safe places in which to serve their country. I’m afraid only the poor, and those without influence, are considered worthy of dying in battle.”
There had been a hint of bitterness in Lin’s words, but it had been almost indiscernible.
“It’s been that way in most wars,” he said.
She looked away, not answering him. “We should not talk of war,” she said finally, turning and smiling at him. “When we return to Saigon it will be with us again all too soon.”
“You’re right,” Peter said. “I wish very much I didn’t have to go back tonight. When will you be returning?”
“The day after tomorrow,” Lin said.
“I should be settled in at the hotel by then. Would you have dinner with me there when you return?”
“It would be difficult that night. But perhaps the following evening.”
As they left the park a group of children rushed forward, calling out in pidgin English for Peter to give them money. He reached into his pocket, but Lin suddenly grabbed his arm. He was surprised by the strength of her grip.
She glared at the children, a ragtag collection of five boys and two girls, all eight or nine years old. “Go from here,” she snapped in Vietnamese.
The children stood their ground, glancing from Lin to Peter. Lin took a quick step forward, raising her hand as if preparing to strike out at them. The children turned and ran. She spun on Peter, her eyes flashing with anger.
“You must not encourage their begging,” she said.
Peter was momentarily stunned. Lin’s lips were trembling, and for a moment he thought she would strike out at him.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.
“No. You think it is a kindness to encourage them.” She caught hold of herself and looked down. When her eyes went back to his face, the anger was gone. “We have little here, Peter, but our pride. We must not allow our children to lose that as well.”
He reached out and touched her arm, then let his hand fall away. “You’re right,”
he said. “I still have a great deal to learn.” To remember, he added to himself. “You must tell me when I act foolishly.”
She laughed quietly. “Would you believe me if I did?”
“I want to understand, Lin.”
“What is it you wish to understand, Peter? My people, or yourself?”
“Both,” he said.
Chapter 29
Joe Morris had seemed surprised by Peter’s call, but had quickly agreed to meet with him. When Peter had suggested privacy for the meeting, Morris had named a Tu Do Street bar, assuring him that no one there except the hookers would pay any attention to two men sitting alone.
Peter had no trouble finding the Friendly Bar. Its neon sign flashed like a beacon, bathing the seediness of Tu Do Street in gaudy reds and blues. Outside, young Vietnamese men, dressed in the traditional white shirts and black trousers of students, stood on either side of the door, offering looks of contempt to the Americans who passed between them.
The interior of the bar surprised Peter. It was even seedier than its exterior. Behind the bar, which ran the length of the long, narrow room, more neon lighting sent out a sickly blue glow, and it caught the cigarette smoke, giving it an unpleasant, toxic quality. At a table near the door, a large, muscular young man, wearing the shoulder patch of Special Forces, leaned drunkenly toward a strikingly ugly Vietnamese woman. She giggled at his slobbering suggestions and ran her hand up and down his leg.
The tables seemed to have been placed only a foot apart, packing in as many as possible, and Peter squeezed between them, searching through the hazy smoke for Morris. Halfway into the long, narrow room, Peter spotted him waving from a corner table. Approaching the table, Peter decided Morris seemed entirely in his element; the gaudiness and smoke, the heavily made-up bar girls dressed in almost nonexistent mini-skirts, seemed to blend perfectly with his disheveled, well-worn look.
“Thought you got lost, or chickened out,” Morris said, as Peter shoehorned himself into a chair at the small round table.
Peter rocked back and forth in the chair. It, like the table, was bolted to the floor. “Are they afraid of earthquake or theft?” he asked.
“Breakage,” Morris said. “Furniture’s tough to get, and this way these wahoos can’t use it to dent each other’s heads. They lose a lot of bottles, though—empty ones, thank Christ. I do hate waste.”
As Morris finished speaking, Peter felt an arm drape around his neck. He looked up and saw a hard but pretty Vietnamese face only inches from his own.
“You buy drink for Sou Yet,” the young woman said, leaving out any hint of a question.
Morris snorted. “Not now, Sou Yet. Later, he buy drink, buy blow job, buy everything. Not now.”
The young woman grinned at Peter. At the corner of her mouth, he could see some teeth were missing.
“Okay, I come back.” She ran her hand up the side of Peter’s neck. “You no find other girl,” she said. “They number ten. They no same me. Me beaucoup good. Number one. You see.”
The woman turned and quickly moved to another table, her slender hips undulating in an exaggerated way. Peter looked back at Morris and exhaled heavily.
Morris laughed. “Don’t worry, kid, these girls hand out a penicillin prescription with each trick.”
“I’m allergic.”
“To which?”
“Both.”
He snorted. “Wanna drink? You’re not allergic to that, I hope.”
“Beer will do fine, thanks.”
Peter looked around the room, as Morris caught the attention of a waitress and ordered. The cramped room was filled with at least a hundred GIs and half as many bar girls, each dressed in an outrageous costume, each plying her trade to drunken semi-enthusiastic response. Along the bar there was a girl for every third man, and if one potential customer’s response was not eager enough, the girl would simply rotate in place and begin work on the next. When Peter turned his attention back to the table, Morris was grinning at him.
“The Saigon meat auction,” Morris said. “You see those kids outside, the ones who looked like they’d like to cut your balls off?”
Peter nodded.
“Boyfriends and brothers,” Morris said.
“Pimping?” Peter asked.
“Surviving,” Morris answered.
There was a note of compassion in Morris’ voice that seemed to contradict the hard-bitten image he tried to project. Peter felt Morris might well be a far better man than he had first assumed.
“How long have you been here, Joe?” he asked.
“Almost two years.” Morris snorted at himself. “Believe it or not, I asked for the assignment. For ten years I struggled through a bunch of small daily newspapers in New Jersey. Then finally, after I managed to win a couple of regional awards, I was offered a job with UPI.” He laughed, then took a long pull on his drink. “You know what they did? They assigned me to their Newark office. And bingo, I was right back where I started.” He shook his head and smiled at the irony of it. “Anyway, I thought some duty here would change my luck. But so far all I’ve had to report is the bullshit that comes out of the Five O’Clock Follies.”
Peter cocked his head, questioning the term.
“The press’s name for the briefing reports we get every day from Westmoreland’s PR staff,” Morris explained.
Peter smiled at the disrespect. “And you want to go beyond that.”
“You bet your ass I do.”
Peter looked back toward the door. The young Green Beret was gone, his place taken by a middle-aged petty officer, dressed in navy whites. He was talking to the same ugly young woman. His beer arrived, and Peter took a long drink. “Tell me about heroin,” Peter said.
“Why?” Morris asked.
Peter remained silent. He just stared at Morris, knowing that would make any man say more than he intended.
“Why you interested?” Morris asked. “You want to look into it?” Peter waited, holding Morris’ eyes until he shifted in his seat. “Let’s not play games, Joe. Let’s just say I’d like to find out about it if I can. Purely informational. If you can help, fine. If not …” He allowed a shrug of his shoulders to finish the sentence.
“I’m not interested in giving out information, kid. Not unless you’re a lot smarter and a lot tougher than you look. This scam isn’t being run by a group of guys who are looking over their shoulder for the cop on the beat. They own the cop on the beat. All of them.” He paused, taking a long drink of Jack Daniel’s.
“I’m particularly interested in a Corsican I’ve heard about,” Peter said.
“That’s not surprising. The Corsicans here are involved in just about everything,” Morris said. “What’s so special about this one?”
“He’s supposed to be running a heroin operation out of North Viet Nam, and selling it in the south.”
“And you think the North Vietnamese get a cut of his action?”
Peter nodded his head, then repeated the information his grandfather had given him. “And use it to help finance the war.”
“Jesus. That’s a great story, if you can prove it. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Francesco Canterina. Have you ever heard of him?”
Morris shook his head. “Never. Do you know who his buyers are here?”
“That’s where I hoped you might help,” Peter said. “It could be local merchants, politicians, or even corrupt ARVN brass.”
Morris’ face filled with frustration. “Christ, if I knew any of that, I’d have the Pulitzer in my hip pocket.”
“Do you know anything about distribution?” Peter asked. “How they get the stuff out of the country? If I could find that out, I could trace it back to the buyers, and then to Canterina.”
Morris rubbed his chin, trying to appear thoughtfully calm. But Peter could see the excitement in his eyes.
“All I’ve heard are rumors, and a few code words.” He stared across the table at Peter. “If I tell you what I have heard, what do I get o
ut of it?”
“Everything. All the names, even photos and tape recordings of a deal going down, if I can get them.”
Morris’ eyes narrowed. “What if it involves some heavy people in the south? People whose names might embarrass the boys at the embassy?”
“You get whatever I get,” Peter said.
“Your bosses won’t like that,” Morris said.
Peter smiled. “No, they won’t, Joe. But that’s the deal. If you don’t want it, I’ll find somebody who does.”
Morris held up both hands. “Okay. Don’t be such a hard-ass. What I have to tell you isn’t all that great anyway.” He took another long drink. “About six months ago there was a young kid working in G-2 who started poking his nose around. His name was Constantini, and seems he had a kid brother who was hooked on junk back home.”
“Why’d he come to you?” Peter asked.
“He claimed he told the officer he worked for, and was told to butt out. Anyway, he said the stuff was being stored right on base at Tan Son Nhut, which would indicate some ARVN involvement, and would also explain why he was told to mind his own fucking business.”
“That’s all he found?”
Morris shook his head. “No, but the rest of it is crazy shit. He said the junk was going out of the country on something they called the ‘long silver train.’ And that everything went through somebody they called the ‘green vulture.’ Had his special stamp of protection on it.” Morris shook his head. “He said it was so simple it was sickening. Said he stumbled across it while doing a routine investigation on somebody in his unit who had bought the farm.”
“So why didn’t he tell you more?” Peter said.
Morris’ lips curved up into a sickened smile. “He was going to. But the next day some VC sapper blew his brains out about three blocks from here. And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge back home I want to sell you.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Peter said. “It all sounds like something out of a comic book.”
“No shit, Red Ryder. There are no trains in this goddam country, long silver ones or any other kind. And the green vulture …” He raised his hands and let them drop back to the table.
The Corsican Page 35